The Way of the Cross

Our death to sin in the Lord Jesus' crucifixion is different from the way of the cross as a continuing, acting principle in our life for others. DeVern F. Fromke explains this in his book The Ultimate Intention:

". . . as the believer begins to interpret the Cross as an eternal principle which God intends to be operative in him, then he sees the Cross in a new light--as it realizes for God. Instead of only appropriating the work of the Cross, this means he will embrace the way of the Cross.

"There is a big difference! First we learn to appropriate the work of the Cross; then as the Cross becomes inwrought in the believer--we learn the way of the Cross. Appropriating emphasizes what the Father receives through His sons. The two aspects are not necessarily separate in experience but each must have its particular work in the life of the believer who presses on the highway living unto God.

"We may speak of entering the way of the Cross when the Cross ceases to be only external; and when it becomes operative within the believer. Instead of the accent on man's receiving, it is on the Father's realizing HIS ULTIMATE INTENTION in the Cross.

"Once this has come as a revelation, it will be evident that this phase has been almost overlooked. The writer of Hebrews must have had this in mind when he said, 'Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on . . .' (Heb. 6:1). The Apostle Paul seems to insist that this way of the Cross is the evident reason that his own ministry is fruitful and effective:

"'For we which live are always delivered unto death FOR JESUS' SAKE, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in us. So then death worketh in us . . . but life in you' (2 Cor. 4:11).

"How strange this seems to those who are ever seeking to get and have not yet come alive to what God might receive through their lives. Of course they cannot appreciate or understand Paul's purpose of life. They have somehow missed the importance of one little phrase which Paul continually emphasizes. It is used in a similar context in his letter to the Romans:

"We are daily accounted as sheep for the slaughter . . . 'FOR THY SAKE' (Rom. 8:26).

"We are daily delivered unto death 'FOR JESUS' SAKE' (2 Cor. 4:11). Previously we saw everything 'for our sake.' But now as we move along this highway, it means interpreting this working of death as FOR JESUS' SAKE.

"What a privilege and calling is ours! God has chosen and designed us to be transparent vessels to display heaven's treasure--vessels through which He might continually reveal to others the dying of the Lord Jesus. What seems to be 'our dying' is really the 'dying of the Lord Jesus' in us. This 'working of death' becomes the means of life to all to whom it is revealed.

THE REASON FOR BARREN LIVING

'Many of God's children approach the way of the Cross with bewilderment and hesitancy. Not understanding what was in God's mind before the Fall, nor the heavenly philosophy of life, they shudder at the thought of a constant working of death. 'I am not ready for that pathway. I want abundant life and joy--not death.'

". . . To move along the highway of realization and enjoy living by the life of Another is not the way of least resistance, even though you may be surrounded by Christians. A shock comes to those who find themselves on another highway altogether, because the Christ-life can only be lived in one way--unto God and poured out for others. The moment we think we can settle down to use Him (His life) for our own living, He (His life) won't be ours to use. Divine life does not operate that way.

"We have not been delivered from the world as long as we continue to interpret Calvary as it will benefit us. Even though we may share the 'benefits' with those who are lost, we are doing so in our own way while preserving our own right to rule. Multitudes of believers are in captivity to a world system of security and reward. God waits to turn their captivity when they come to the end of their own ways. But He will never thrust His way upon anyone. It is our privilege and glad-hearted choice to move onto a highway where life is unto Him.

THE PAST AND PRESENT

"In God's reckoning, the work of the Cross has been once for all finished. We should always make this distinction. When we reckon upon Christ's death for us and our death with Him, we use the past tense, saying with Paul:

"'I have been crucified . . .'

"'Our old man was crucified . . .'

"Reckon yourselves . . . to be dead . . .'

"In these and many other instances Paul pictures our union 'together with Him.' We are delivered from sin's guilt and its power by reckoning on our identification with the finished work of Christ on the Cross. There is a finality--we are to reckon on what is past.

"There are some who confuse this with another of Paul's statements and assume we are called to 'die daily' to sin. NO! Paul insists we are dead to sin. From the time of our first knowledge of Christ's redemptive work, and our appropriation by reckoning it ours, we have been dead to sin. In any dispute with Satan, or uprising of the flesh, we reckon from the time of our first reckoning. It is always past! Finished!

"When Paul said, 'I die daily,' he was not saying that we are called to die daily to sin. It is just at this point many confuse the 'work' of the Cross and the 'way' of the Cross. The first is a past tense reality which we reckon upon. The latter is a present tense reality which we share with Christ continually.

"Jesus, who as the last Adam entered the world sinless, needed only to embrace the way of the Cross. He said, 'If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me' (Luke 9:23). This is often misused to teach that by some measure of self-discipline man can put the old self to death by a daily denial. This is utterly frustrating to the grace of God! We must keep two aspects of truth in their proper place. Two different men are involved. The Lord Jesus identified Himself with the human race, enfolded us in Himself and took us to the tomb. Now God reckons that we are not only dead but buried. This was the end of the Adam race. Jesus was the last Adam. Now we are risen from the dead and alive in the Lord Jesus, who is also spoken of as the second Man. We with Him are a new creation-- a completely new man.

NOTE THE DIFFERENCE

"The old man in Adam experiences the work of the Cross. The new man in Christ is called to embrace the way of the Cross. We reckon our death to the old Adam, standing on Christ's finished work, always in the past tense. We now daily share in the new Man that divine way of life, which works death in us but life in others.

"In another figure, we hand ourselves over to God, that as a kernel of wheat we may be planted in death in order to bring forth much fruit. Paul refers to this new man when he says 'always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body.' It is faulty interpretation of the Scripture that leads us to assume that God would put heaven's treasure in anything but a new man.

"Let us now consider more carefully four portions of Scripture, often confused with the old man, which actually apply to the new. It is the new man, who because of ministry stands ' in jeopardy every hour.' For this reason Paul says, 'I die daily.' The context is very plain. There is no reference to dying to sin. The Apostle speaks of this daily willingness to hazard his life for the gospel. The passage reads: 'If the dead rise not . . . why stand we in jeopardy every hour? . . . I die daily. If by the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not?' (1 Cor. 15:30-32).

"T. A. Hegre writes, 'It would require the greatest stretch of the imagination and the greatest liberty in exegesis to apply this phrase, 'I die daily,' to death to sin. It does not at all refer to sin . . ., but to Paul's willingness to sacrifice his life that others might live.'

"Another passage often interpreted as having to do with death to sin is found in John 12:24. Jesus said, 'Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.' Any farmer plants good, seed--seed with life in it. Seed is planted not for purification but for production [multiplication]. We are as seed in His hand.

DEAD--BUT ALSO DYING

"For many years I was puzzled about Paul's desire as expressed in Philippians 3:10. Six years before this writing he testified, 'I have been crucified with Christ--[in Him] I have shared His crucifixion; it is no longer I who live, but Christ, the Messiah lives in me; and the life I now live in the body I live by faith--by adherence to and reliance on and [complete] trust--in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me' (Gal. 2:20 A.N.T.).

"Why should one who testified of such a death later say, 'That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead?' (Phil. 3:10). If one is dead is he not dead? How then could Paul long to die again or continue to die?

"It was not until I understood the distinction we have been making that I realized Paul was no longer speaking about the dying of the old man. He is speaking as God's new man--it is his purpose to 'fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church . . .' (Col. 1:24). As he shared more deeply in Christ's suffering by conforming to the way of the Cross, he would know greater resurrection power. We also have the same joy and privilege to be identified with the Lord Jesus in ministry.

"In 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 (A.N.T.), another passage makes this truth clear: 'For we do not want you to be uninformed brethren, about the affliction and oppressing distress which befell us in [the province of] Asia, how we were so utterly and unbearably weighted down and crushed that we despaired even of life [itself]. Indeed, we felt within ourselves that we had received the [very] sentence of death; but that was to keep us from trusting and depending on ourselves instead of on God Who raises the dead.'

"Conformity to death on the resurrection side of the Cross means a deepening weakness in ourselves, not an increasing sense of strength! Our natural desire is to feel we are strong and can do this or that. Weakness is the way of the Cross, for we live by the life and strength of Another.

"Let us quote the testimony of Mrs. Penn-Lewis, who tells of a crisis in her life which came after her deliverance from the dominion of sin. While enjoying the work of the Cross as it meant a joyous experience she began to read a volume on the Way of the Cross. She says:

"'. . . From that hour I understood, and knew intelligently, that it was by dying, not doing, that produced spiritual fruit. The secret of a fruitful life is--in brief--to pour out to others and want nothing for yourself: to leave yourself utterly in the hands of God and not care what happens to you.' (From Memoirs by M. N. Garrard.)

". . . Surely the answer lies, as we have been pointing out, in keeping these two phases distinct: the work of the Cross which deals with the old Adam-life, and the way of the Cross which the new man gladly embraces as a daily pathway.

"Recall Jacob's midnight crisis when God put the sentence of death upon the strength of old-Jacob. Even when he came forth in his new name, Israel, God designed that he should bare the mark of lameness. It was to be a constant reminder that he was not to walk after the old life of the flesh, but in the strength of his new life: Israel. So it is as the new man in Christ that we learn our own weakness in ourselves, but that our constant source of strength is in Him. Mary N. Garrard pictures the new man, Israel, thus:

'The lame shall take the prey.'
And I am lame--
Lame in my inmost soul,
Oh Saviour, make me whole!
But ever keep me lame enough
To be of use to Thee.

If Thou shouldst make me strong--
Strong in myself--
To wrestle, fight and pray,
Toil for Thee night and day,
I might unwittingly soon cease
To be wrecked upon Thee.

So leave me with the lameness Jacob had
Halting upon his thigh;
That when, amid the battle sorely pres't,
The victory of the Cross is manifest
Through my prevailing prayer, the praise
May be wholly to Thee.

For here is victory--
Give me the power
To fight until the sword cleave to my hand,
And 'having overthrown them all, to stand,'
And be content for only God to know
Who wrought with Him that day.